Part 15 (1/2)

”We can't stay here,” I told Constantine, thinking aloud. ”They will know where the Emperor keeps the pay-chest. Go-pack a change of clothes and whatever books you can carry in one bundle.” I was already calling to Brasilia and the maids.

”But why are we running away?” protested Con as I shepherded my household down the road. The maids were weeping, clutching their bundles in their arms, but Brasilia looked grim. ”Surely the Emperor will stop the riot before it can get this far.”

”My guess is that the Emperor is dead, and that is why the soldiers are rioting,” I answered. Philip crossed himself, and I remembered that he had been attending the Christian church in town.

Constantine stopped short, staring, and I reached out to drag him along. He knew in theory that most emperors did not reign long, but Probus was the only emperor he could really remember, a man who in his rare moments of leisure had played board games with the child.

”But what about Father?” he said. Now it was he who was pus.h.i.+ng me forwards. My son was as close to me as my own heartbeat, but it was Constantius whom he idolized.

I managed a smile, even though that was the question that had been knotting my belly ever since I realized what was going on.

”He is not the one who ordered them to work in this heat. I am sure they will do him no harm,” I said stoutly. ”Come along now. The basilica has stout walls, and not much that's worth looting. We'll be safe there.”

We were almost in time. The riot exploded with volcanic swiftness, and by the time we reached the Forum, the first bands of maddened soldiers were already rampaging through the town. Some of them might have been from my husband's command-men whom I had nursed when the flux swept the camp the winter before. But they had already broken into at least one taverna, and the unwatered wine in the flasks they were carrying was speedily drowning what reason bloodl.u.s.t had left them.

As my little group emerged from the colonnaded cloister that surrounded the square, a band of perhaps twenty men came pounding down the main street, their hobnailed sandals ringing on the cobblestones. In another moment we were surrounded. Hylas began to bark furiously, struggling in Brasilia's arms.

We should have stayed at the palace! I thought desperately.We could have hidden in the stables - Then I saw Con fumbling for the Parthian dagger his father had given him on his last birthday and pushed myself in front of him.

”Make no move!” I hissed as one of the soldiers made a grab for me, tearing my tunica from the fibula that held it at the shoulder so that it fell, leaving one breast bare.

Abruptly the men grew still, l.u.s.t transfixing them like lightning as they stared. In another moment they would kill the boy and throw me spread-eagled to the ground. Rape I could endure, but not the loss of the child for whom I had given up Avalon!

”G.o.ddess!” I cried in the British tongue, ”save your Chosen One!” And as my arms lifted in invocation, it seemed as if a great wind swept down and whirled my awareness away.

As if from a great distance I heard a voice too resonant to be human calling down curses, coming from a figure that seemed head and shoulders taller than the diminutive beings that surrounded her, a figure that radiated light. A great hound stood beside her, growling like thunder. She swept down her hands, and her puny a.s.sailants recoiled, falling over each other in their haste to get away. The G.o.ddess beckoned to the ones she was defending, and led them towards the basilica. When she reached its door she turned, drawing a circle in the air as if to claim the place as her own.

In the next moment I felt myself falling, all power leaving my limbs as I returned to my body and crumpled to the ground.

Exclaiming, my servants half-dragged, half-carried me inside. It took some time for me to catch my breath and calm them enough so that I could speak with Constantine.

”They would have killed my mother!” he said hoa.r.s.ely, clinging to me as he had not done since he was a little child.

This did not seem the time to point out that killing was the least of what the rioters had had in mind. ”It is all right,” I soothed him. ”We are safe now...”

”No one is safe if the Emperor loses control,” he muttered. ”It should not have happened. I am young, and they were too strong for me, but I swear to you, mother, such things will not be allowed when I am a man!”

I shook my head, thinking how much he had to learn, then put an arm around him and held him close.

”When you are a man, you will set all things right!” I murmured to comfort him, and only when I had said it did it occur to me that even this might be possible for the Child of Prophecy.

Night came, and with it came the rest of the legion, seeking to drown the knowledge of what they had done in wine and violence. If the officers had survived, like us, they had found some bolthole in which to hide. I believed that Constantius was among them. Surely I would have known if death had broken the bond between us. To the south, where the wealthy had built their homes around the palace, we could see flames, and I thought that I had been right to bring my people here after all. Some of the shopkeepers and the clerks who worked in the basilica were here when we arrived, so we were about thirty in number, in all.

When for a time there was a pause in the sounds of destruction and revelry I could hear chanting from the Christian church.

”Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison...”

”Lord, have mercy,” whispered Philip, behind me.

They had no more defence than the sheep of which they sang so often, but even drunken soldiers knew there would be nothing worth looting there. I pitied any poor souls who had no refuge at all, for the Roman legionary, who could fight like a hero under discipline, without it was closer to the beast than any barbarian.

Through that night we huddled in the basilica, sitting with our backs against the wall, and though it was the season when the hours of darkness are at their least, to us it seemed very long. But at last I must have dozed, Constantine's solid torso lying across my lap, as if in this extremity he had become once more a little child. I opened my eyes to see a pale light filtering through the high windows. The city outside was, at long last, still.

Con stirred in my arms and sat up, rubbing his eyes. ”I'm thirsty,” he said, blinking at the others, who were beginning to wake as well.

”I'll go,” said Philip, and when I opened my lips to stop him, shook his head. ”The troops will all have pa.s.sed out and be sleeping it off, or wis.h.i.+ng they were. Why should anyone bother me?”

I sighed and nodded acceptance. Philip had filled out as he grew older, but early underfeeding had stunted him and with his crooked nose and shock of wiry reddish hair he was not likely to invite attack of any kind.

”Are you still afraid of the soldiers, Mother?” asked Con. ”I have been thinking, and I am certain now that we will be safe. A G.o.ddess protects you, as I have seen, and I know that I am not destined to die here, for have you not told me many times that I am the Child of Prophecy?”

I stared at my son, wondering now if that had been wise. When the rioters surrounded us the day before, I had suddenly remembered that visions showed only what thingsmight come to pa.s.s. It was my own desperation that had summoned the Lady's power, not destiny. I still believed that Constantine had been born with the potential for greatness, but his own deeds must determine whether, and how, that potential was to be fulfilled.

By the time Philip returned, most of the others were awake. He had picked up an empty amphora and filled it at the fountain, and had found a cup to go with it. The water tasted faintly of wine.

”I am surprised that you found anything unbroken,” I said as I pa.s.sed the cup to Brasilia. ”How is it, out there?”

”Like the morning after a battle, except that most of the gore is not blood but wine. A tribune on his first campaign could command them, ashamed as they are right now. I heard one man sobbing about how good Probus had been as a general, and they ought to build him a monument.” He shook his head disgustedly.

By mid-morning, the shop-keepers felt brave enough to begin sweeping up the wreckage, and the owners of food-stalls, whose wares were not so breakable, were in business once more. Many of the legionaries had ended their riot in the forum and were now awakening, and as the morning drew on, more joined them, to gather in arguing groups. I was not quite ready to try returning home, however, always supposing the palace was still there to return to, and so we were sitting on the steps of the basilica eating sausages wrapped in flat-bread, when the rhythmic tramp and jingle of soldiers marching in formation brought everyone-mutineers and townsfolk alike-to attention.

It was not a junior officer who had rallied them, but the Praetorian Prefect, Carus. As he rode into the forum my heart beat faster, for behind him, with a face that seemed chipped from stone, came Constantius. I rose to my feet with our son beside me, and his gaze, moving across the crowd, came to the porch of the basilica and found me.You are all right , for a moment his features contorted.I can live once more . I should not have been surprised-he had two of us to worry about. At least I had known that our son was safe. Then Constantius got his face under control, but it no longer seemed made of stone.

No doubt my own face would have displayed a similar transformation if anyone had been watching me, but all eyes were fixed on Carus, who rode as calmly as if he were on his way to the Senate, where he had served before resuming his military career. He had apparently been picking up stragglers as he came through the city, for more soldiers followed, crowding into the square. In the centre of the forum was a fountain raised on three steps. Carus slid off the horse and as it was led away, stepped up onto the broad stone rim of the fountain, from which he could see and be seen. He must be near sixty, but he was still strong and fit, with a bald head which he protected with a shapeless cap, and a preference for the simple dress of the old Republic.

”Soldiers of Rome-” Carus began, ”what G.o.d has maddened you? You have done to death the Emperor who was your kind father, made yourselves orphans, dishonoured the spirits of your fallen brothers and the emblems you carry.”

For some time he continued in this vein, speaking with a measured elegance that indicated an excellent education. Soon the men, who had begun by listening in sullen silence, were weeping. But Con had left the shelter of my arm and moved forwards to watch with s.h.i.+ning eyes.

”Centurions! Step forwards, and the rest of you, rally to your commanders!” he cried then, and the chaotic scene slowly resolved itself into something resembling military formation. ”You will return to your tents, cleanse yourselves and your gear and present yourselves in formation on the parade ground at the second hour after noon.”

I supposed that even standing in full kit under the blazing sun would be better than digging mud, but fortunately a breeze from the north was bringing the temperature down.

But perhaps, in their current condition, even that much discipline was too much for the men, for a murmur was growing among the ranks. I saw Constantius rein in a suddenly-restive horse, and Carus frowned.

One of the centurions stepped forwards. ”Sir!” He brought his arm to his chest in salute. ”As you say, we are orphans, who need a father's strong hand. Who will be our commander now?”

”The Senate, in Rome-” Carus began, for Probus had not named an heir, but he sounded less certain now.

”b.u.g.g.e.r the Senate,” said someone in the ranks, and there was an echo of laughter.

Con shook his head, and I bent my own to hear his whisper. ”The Senate has no power, only the army.

Why cannot he see?”

I thought that perhaps Carus did, for there was a tension in his posture as he waited for their silence that had not been there before. Was it hope or resignation? I could not be sure.

”My lord, we need an emperor!” The centurion raised his arm in salutation. ”Hail, Caesar!”

”Hail Caesar!” the men responded with a full-throated roar. ”Carus shall be Emperor!” Suddenly they surged forwards, chanting his name until the columns of the basilica's porch trembled to the sound. I was certain that the rioters had looted the palace when I saw a flash of purple and they draped one of the dead Emperor's togas across his shoulders. At least one of the men had his s.h.i.+eld, and the mob that had surrounded Carus got him onto it and raised him high.